


Quietude (In Memoriam for a Life We Dreamed of)

by nickelsandcoats



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Memory Loss, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-20
Updated: 2011-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-26 07:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickelsandcoats/pseuds/nickelsandcoats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they retired, Mycroft and Greg didn't anticipate this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quietude (In Memoriam for a Life We Dreamed of)

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://ilovewales.livejournal.com/profile)[**ilovewales**](http://ilovewales.livejournal.com/)'s prompt [here](http://nickelsandcoats.livejournal.com/122267.html) at my shuffle meme post.
> 
>  
> 
> For [](http://ilovewales.livejournal.com/profile)[**ilovewales**](http://ilovewales.livejournal.com/), who asked for number 953, which was “Dumbledore’s Farewell” from the _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_ soundtrack by Nicholas Hooper.

  
“Sherlock and John are coming tomorrow,” Lestrade said as he clicked off the small mobile in his hand.

Mycroft looked up at him over his glasses and the thick book he was reading. “How did you manage to convince my brother to part from his bees for a day?”

“Who said I was the one doing the convincing?” Greg wandered over and leaned down to press his lips against his husband’s now-grey hair.  
“I spoke to John. Let him do the convincing.”

Mycroft huffed a laugh and, after he put the book down, pulled him down for a proper kiss. He leaned his forehead against Greg’s chest as the other man straightened up. His husband’s arms came up around his shoulders, one hand cupping the contours of his skull, cradling him gently. “Do you think we should tell them when they come?”

Greg’s chest rose and fell several times before he finally asked, “Is that what you want to do? You know Sherlock will be able to tell without us saying anything.”

“For once in my life, my dear, I do not know what I want.”

The unspoken _and soon enough, I won’t remember enough to care_ hung heavily in the air.

Silence.

Greg slowly, painfully, lowered himself down until he was kneeling on the floor, eye to eye with Mycroft, who closed his eyes. “Hey.”

Mycroft breathed deeply and opened his eyes, looking straight into Greg’s brown ones, gone slightly muddy over the years.

“That’s better. You know they’ve made a lot of strides medically over the years. It won’t be as bad as what happened with your Mum. You’ll have more time, and the doctors say you won’t lose as much of your memory as you would have twenty years ago.”

Mycroft’s face crumpled just slightly. “I don’t want to lose this. Any of this.”

Greg reached out and grasped his face in both hands, stroking his fingers along Mycroft’s temples. “You won’t lose any of it,” he whispered urgently. “I won’t let you.”

  


They curled up in bed together that night, facing each other, stroking their hands over arms, faces, hips, sides, whatever they could reach. Mycroft kept his eyes open for as long as he could, fighting off sleep. He wanted to memorise this, the way Greg looked in sleep, all the lines time and stress and work and laughter had put on his face slackened as he dreamed. He gently traced Greg’s hand, remembering all the ways those long fingers had touched him, how the roughed palms had gentled him and soothed him after a long day spent negotiating with other governments. He wanted a bank of these memories to be locked away deep in his brain, kept safe so that even time and this damned disease and these pills could not take them from him.

He’d fought too hard to have Greg in his life—he wouldn’t give him up without a fight.

  


The next morning was cool and grey. Greg squinted up at the window, rubbing one hand over his face to clear the last of the sleep still clinging to his eyes. “I thought it was supposed to be nice today,” he said, looking at Mycroft, whose hand was still tangled in his on the bed.

“It should clear up soon,” Mycroft said. “It rained a bit in the night.”

Greg frowned at him. “Did you sleep at all?”

Mycroft stared back at him impassively.

“Jesus.” Greg rubbed his thumb over Mycroft’s knuckles. “Why?”

“You know why.”

“Jesus.” He moved to get up, but Mycroft stopped him with a soft, “Stay. Please.”

Greg settled back on their bed and carefully ran his hand up and down his husband’s back, until Mycroft’s eyes closed and he finally, finally drifted off. Greg waited for a few minutes to make sure he was truly asleep before he cautiously extricated himself from the bed and padded down the hall to make coffee.

Mycroft awoke several hours later to a rush of disorientation as he attempted to figure out where he was. For a moment, he thought he was back in his old home in London, but the sheets were wrong for that. It took what felt like an hour to recollect that while he was still in London, that home had been sold once he and Greg had retired, and therefore, he was in the “new” house they’d been living in for six years. Planting his feet on the wooden floor, Mycroft took a deep breath. _And so it begins,_ he thought as he stood, stretching carefully.

He pulled on his dressing gown and went down the hall in search of his husband. Greg looked up, jaw tense, as he entered the sitting room. On the table next to his elbow was a glass and a small pile of pills. Mycroft went over to him, kissed him hello, and scooped up the pills, swallowing each one methodically, chasing them with a sip of water.

“You’ll want to get ready,” Greg said softly, eyes still a bit hard, when he was finished. “Sherlock and John will be here soon. There’s a sandwich in the kitchen if you want it.”

“Thank you.”

  


Showered, shaved, and dressed, Mycroft walked back into the sitting room and picked up his novel again. Greg was reading, too, a crime novel written about a case he had worked years ago. Every once in a while, he would snort in disbelief at something the author had got wrong. The only sounds were the quiet strains of Debussy emanating from the sleek little radio Greg had bought him for…Christmas? Yes, Christmas, two years ago, and the soft flick of paper as they each turned pages. Finally, Mycroft could stand it no longer, and he closed his book with a calculated _thump_.

Greg didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking at him; he kept turning pages, eyes flicking calmly over the text.

“Well?”

“Well what?” Greg didn’t even look up from the page. Mycroft’s irritation grew.

“Are you not going to lecture me about staying awake all night? Haven’t you got some speech about how irrational I’m being, that maybe I should go and speak to yet another doctor about that, too?”

Greg slammed his book shut and stared Mycroft down. “For fuck’s sake, Mycroft! Of course I’m upset that you didn’t sleep, of course I’m worried that you’re already obsessing over a future that hasn’t happened yet, about things that no one can predict. But what I’m most upset about is that you haven’t thought about what I might be thinking and feeling right now. About how I’m handling this. And I’ve not said anything because I know you’re scared fucking shitless about what is happening, and so am I. I don’t want to have to tell your brother that soon, you may not remember him or me because the medication they gave you to help keep this from happening to you isn’t working, that your memory’s going anyway. I don’t want to lose you to this. I don’t want to wake up one morning and have you ask me who I am. I don’t even want to think about that, but it’s all I _can_ fucking think about because I need to be able to remember enough for us both. All I can think of is how your mother was, at the end, and how much I never, ever want that to happen to you.” Greg broke off, chest heaving, tears trailing down his cheeks. He wiped at his face with his jumper cuff, soaking it through.

Mycroft sat frozen, paralysed by the force of the pain his husband had kept buried over the long four weeks since his diagnosis.

“It’s not fucking fair!” Greg said, hoarsely. “After all that time in the Yard, all I could think of was that I had to keep myself in one piece so that you and I could retire and not have to worry about anything. I never thought of what to do if something like this came up. I feel so helpless. This isn’t something I can solve, and it’s killing me to see you go through this and not be able to take this away from you.”

Mycroft staggered to his feet and sat down heavily on the sofa, pulling Greg in close to his chest. He rested his head on top of Greg’s, breathing in the scent of his shampoo, committing it to memory as they both cried. Mycroft whispered “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over into Greg’s hair. He kept up his litany until they both dropped into an exhausted doze, slumping back against the sofa, Greg tucked into his side.

  


That was how Sherlock and John found them an hour later, having let themselves in when their knocks went unanswered. Sherlock’s eyes narrowed at the pill bottles still sitting on the table, and nodded at John, who went over and picked them up, bringing them over so they both could inspect the labels.

“Oh, fuck,” John whispered, eyes going wide as the drugs’ names sank in.

Sherlock closed his eyes for a moment, exhaled forcefully though his nose, and reached down, groping for John’s free hand, which he ensnared in a crushing grip. John put the bottles back on the table and tugged him closer to the sofa and reached down, gently shaking Mycroft’s shoulder and calling his name. Mycroft’s eyes snapped open, blinking in confusion for just an instant before clearing.

“John, Sherlock,” he greeted.

“How long?” Sherlock demanded. “How long have you been taking these?” he asked, gesturing at the table.

Greg jerked awake, unconsciously tightening his arm around Mycroft’s chest. “What?” he asked, yawning. “Oh, hello,” he said to his in-laws as he sat up, wincing at the stretch. He took in John’s worried, sad expression and the tension on Sherlock’s face and sagged a bit.

Mycroft said evenly, “Four weeks.”

John closed his eyes. Sherlock’s mouth opened and shut several times as he struggled to find words.

It was John who broke the silence several minutes later as the shock of learning Mycroft’s news sank in a bit. “What’s your prognosis?”

Greg answered him after a wary look at Mycroft, whose expression had shut down. “As good as it can be, given the circumstances. The doctor thinks we caught this early enough that the medication will keep him from losing too much and losing it too quickly.”

Sherlock nodded, still looking a bit shell-shocked. “Mycroft—” he broke off, cleared his throat.

“I know,” Mycroft said quietly, terribly gently. He stood up and embraced his brother, feeling the quiet tremors of emotion quivering under Sherlock’s tense muscles. Sherlock clutched him tightly for a moment, then gently stepped away, swiping ineffectually at his eyes.

John stepped forward, took Sherlock’s hand, looked at him with warm and worried eyes. “Let’s go make some tea, yeah? Give everyone a minute to regroup.”

Sherlock nodded at his husband and let himself be led away. When they got to the kitchen, John pulled him around and held him tightly, letting his own tears fall as Sherlock’s soaked John’s collar. They stood that way for long minutes, allowing the reality of Greg and Mycroft’s situation to sink in, to whisper to each other about their deepest fear—the same one the other men were experiencing now—of losing their memories of each other. Finally, once their words and their tears had dried up, they parted and set about making tea; Sherlock set the trays as John set the tea to steep.

They walked back into the sitting room, trays in hand, smiling a bit. They handed around mugs and biscuits, and sat themselves, pressed thigh-to-thigh on the other sofa. John took a deep breath, glanced at Greg and Sherlock, and said, “Do you remember…” and launched into one of his favourite stories, the one about Sherlock and the missing blue carbuncle that had been found in a goose. They all laughed at his retelling, and when it was over, Sherlock took up the thread, reminiscing about John’s disastrous first date with Sarah. Greg chimed in with his own story of Sally’s last case as a DS.

Mycroft sat back and let the conversation flow around him, memorising the brightness of his brother’s eyes, the warmth of Greg’s hand on his thigh, the smell of tea and home, the sound of John’s laughter. There was still much to discuss, much to remember, much to say to his doctor to ensure that he never lost a moment of this. But for now, this was enough, to sit here with his family and absorb every iota of their presence. When Greg’s story ended, Mycroft smiled at him, leaned forward and said,

“I remember when…”

\--Fin--

**Author's Note:**

> Now with a sequel: [Telling the Bees](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1676057).


End file.
